All the tees in China

Fall is here again, and as the weather cools and the leaves fall, I am, as always, faced with a stunning realization. I have way too many T-shirts.

It’s something I become painfully aware of as I unload them, one by one, from my dresser to make room for the winter clothes. It’s an annual ritual for me, just like bears hibernating, only longer in duration. I pack them into a giant bin where they will sit until spring, at which time I put then back into the dresser, where they will sit until fall — all, that is, except for the top shirt on each stack.

Those are the only ones I ever end up wearing. The thought of deciding which out of over hundred T-shirts to wear on any given day is daunting to me, and so I just take the easy way out, grabbing whatever is on top. Once I wore a Cinco de Mayo T-shirt on the Fourth of July, just because that’s what happened to be on top. When my wife launders them, she puts these same shirts right back on top of the other shirts. One year, every Thursday was Cinco de Mayo.

I seem to be stowing away more and more T-shirts every fall, this despite the fact that I tell myself, “No more!” each time I go through the ritual. “Why don’t you give some of them to Goodwill?” my wife asked one time as she was hearing me complain. “After all, you couldn’t wear all of those in a single summer even if you changed shirts every hour.”

It seemed like a good idea, but as I started going through them, there wasn’t one that I could bear the thought of giving away. This included any of the 17 “Sanitation Nation” shirts that I was given for each weekend that I volunteered to clean the potties at the Kerrville Folk Festival.

“They’re all exactly the same,” my wife commented.

“Yes, but they’re proud mementos of my service to the festival,” I replied.

“For cleaning potties? What, are you afraid someone might actually buy one and go around pretending he was on the Kerrville Potty Patrol? Better chance the Goodwill would use them to clean their own bathrooms.”

It was the same with my two St. Patrick’s Day shirts, this despite the fact that the day only comes once a year, and last year I wore a Mardi Gras shirt on the occasion.

And then there were the tie dyes. For these I had dedicated an entire dresser drawer. “The one that looks like you lost a battle with a chili cheese dog,” my wife chided. “Surely you could do without it.” But she was wrong.

I did find one that I could get rid of. It was one that paid homage to Ray Rice, the ex-running back that went down in flames over a domestic abuse scandal. Once among my most prized possessions, it had suddenly taken on the appeal of one of those self-depreciating “Old Fart” shirts, the kind that makes you wonder what institution left its gate open when you see someone on the street in one.

And so I'm left with enough T-shirts to outfit the entire populace of a large Asian country. (Too bad if they don’t like the same bands and sports teams as me.) I’ll probably have twice as many by the time I die. I’ll let my wife pick out which one to bury me in.

— Mike McHugh is a syndicated columnist from Lake Charles. You can follow him on his blog at thedangyankee.com or on Twitter @dang_yankee.